The Tragedy of Dominic Suber: Part One

the above drawn by Zach

What can I say-- Zach Franzen, proprietor of the Portland Studios Blog, is the funniest, smartest person I know. I think. At very least he's a great draw-er and even better writer.

Zach has composed a fantastic 3 part story with illustrations.

He and Aaron Greene of the Portland Studios IT, audio, and photography department have produced an audio version, complete with introduction and music.

Tune in here.

more dredged from the archives

Work has been furious(ly busy) as of late and there lies, in the foreseeable future, a pause around July. However, I am resolved to be committed to frequenter posting, along the lines of at least once a weekday.

So! More from the archives:

Behold, a drawing completed some time around late college.

I'm going to have a printed sketchbook available around July. This idea will likely make it in, in some form or another. I read a quote one time that I'd butcher to try and re-quote here, so I'll paraphrase/make it up: You have really only about 2 or 3 good ideas in your life and you spent the rest of your life trying to communicate those 2 or 3 ideas.

Not that this drawing exactly is one of those "2 or 3" but it's a motif of something that always manages to crop up. What does it mean? Heck who knows, I just like it and am drawn to draw it over and over.

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Am I curious what do people really want to see on this blog? It's going on 3 years now (2 years and 8 months) and I don't think I've ever asked that. So, there's the question-- what are you interested in seeing / reading? Thanks very much.

As always,
Cory

Illustration Friday: "Fail"

Epic Fail. Failed album cover for a collection of kids songs. This one should not have failed-- the math was there -- kid, tea cup, moon, flying, little boats with musicians initials.

All the elements for a great cover. Alas it was not to be. Nor was my second cover:


The album is called "Slug and Bugs and Lullabies" ...so here we have a slug, a bug, and a lullaby. Not these colors mind, I just colored it for myself, but the drawing.

It was not to be either. So, I made another, (two versions of another) and they were ultimately not to be.

More covers versions
A previous IF post with another reject interior
The "approved" final rough which was unapproved

The above is a version that almost made it, made it to a revision at least, and then canned.

Here's what came about to be final--


Oh, wait, no, it was changed, the bugs were taken out and some stars from some of the interior art replaced them.

Oh well.

I've still got the drawing of the kid and the tea cup and the moon. That'll make it into a mural in a kids bedroom some day.

Fail? Heck no!

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This post is to show the progression of cover development under the IF topic "Fail"

I hope it didn't somehow come across as if I were harboring some latent irritation towards the "client" because the project was fun to do. We've done several projects together in the past and I look forward to more.

What failed to occur to me was the "failed" elements making it into the album in other places, I was only thinking about the cover in regards to "FAIL."

(Fail is a funny word to me and to think of a kid and teacup and moon and flying and to think of some deep, dark voicing pronouncing: FAILURE is funny to me.)

Most of the "failed" elements made it into the album design in other places, just not the cover. The slug, bug, and gramophone made it onto the back, the one "failed" cover made it behind the the place where the CD goes inside. Again this wasn't about the individual pieces, just about the cover itself "failing."

I picked this project to post because I genuinely liked the pieces themselves. Every project has revisions, so I don't want anyone to think the client was unreasonable in anyway. Because that was never the case.

ACTION... ROMANCE... DESIRE

All those elements have come together to create the "Cody Webster" t-shirt.


Here's the line art. I just tossed in some color for this to make it a little more exciting.

You can check out more of Cody here, worthwhile.com/cody

As well as some of his previous posts, below:
Cody 2

little dragon

Here's a little dragon. It's part of a big project I spent all last week and weekend on. I'll post more as information becomes available.

I like to listen to movies while I work. Here is the list of movies I listened to this weekend.

All 3 Lord of the Rings films, extended edition. Various documentaries.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (writer/director commentary)
The Royal Tenenbaums
Finding Nemo
Ghostbusters

those are ones I remember anyway. This weekend was a blur.

more development work

Here's a handful of images, some development work I did a few months ago.

The look is somewhat removed from my usual fare. I'd love to hear what you may think about it. Is it zany in a good or bad way? Do you like the look? These are the questions the public want answers to. Or actually just me.

Several iterations of design I was beyond not into but the final style has translated well into some of the animation projects that are currently underway here. Enjoy.

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Here's a previous post of one of the characters development, start to finish. William.

Illustration Friday: "Save"

Yul Brynner (Chris), The Magnificent Seven.

Chris: There's a job for six men, watching over a village, south of the border.
O'Reilly: How big's the opposition?
Chris: Thirty guns.
O'Reilly: I admire your notion of fair odds, mister.

Zach Franzen, proprietor of the Portland Studios company blog commissioned each of us to do a cowboy themed piece on a 4x6 card. Here's one of mine. Probably not a great likeness of Yul, but dang if time wouldn't allow. I've got a massive project going right now that's got a deadline Monday (was due today but I got it pushed off until Monday)

For your enjoyment:

Illustration Friday: "Homage"

Paying homage to one of the greatest, Maurice Sendak. I got to meet him once in NYC. Not something I'll forget. Here's a little watercolored Wild Thing I did some time ago.

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In other news, I'm selling 20 prints of the piece below!
from my piece which was voted/accepted into
the Illustration Friday "Open" show

$25, free shipping to US

Check out details here
Order prints here

Thanks to those who have ordered!

prints [updated]

ORDER PRINTS HERE!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270223712040

I've got 20 prints available and there's a 7 day time period set on it.

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I've got this one piece in particular that I really like:


I like it for a couple reasons.

One, it was the last "significant" piece I did on my old 15 in. eMac.

Two, I did it at all at the kitchen table at our old apartment, eMac on the kitchen table as well.

Third, I did it over a year ago and looking back I can see that this piece was part of the beginning of a stride (and by 'stride' I mean a consistent leveling up in quality of work -- I think we all get those from time to time.)

This piece was voted/accepted in to the Illustration Friday "Open" show in Long Beach, CA a few months back. I had 25 prints made and got rid of a few so that means I've got some left over. So! I wondering if any one would like one. They're priced same as they were at the show, $25.

If anyone is interested, leave a comment and I'll make an eBay 'buy it now' for you, you can pay through PayPal. (I've been selling some junk on eBay recently and who'd ever guess, people buy junk.)

So leave me a comment if you are interested.

$25, that's including shipping, I'll link to the bid. International shipping I'll have to figure out, but to the USA it'll be included.

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Here's a bad photo of the print. They're sized to 8x10 so you can get a pre-cut mat to fit and frame it in a photo frame. I'm very happy with the quality of the prints and the colors printed spot on. They're all titled and signed as well.

Civilization

A painting in tea. A hundred tea bags boiled with boiling waters, steeped, and made into liquid media.

Zach Franzen, proprietor of the Portland Blog, has a fantastic new post coming involving tea and civilization. We were, as a result, commissioned to each do a paintings in tea.

Rule Britannia, rule the waves.

chimney sweep

Working on a more realized version of this little doodle.

I enjoy the down time between projects. I just finished a big one and I've got an equally involved project waiting to start but, (thank you) clients take time talking to their clients and they take time talking back to them before it all gets back to me.

So, I get a down time. Which is fun.

More from the ocean. I mean garage.

I spent over three hours Sunday afternoon on his face. I painted and scrubbed and painted and scrubbed and just when the underpainting began to be no longer discernible, it clicked.

My goal is to paint the entire piece, finish the figure and then let it dry for a week or more then go back and do washes. I hope to push the figure back some and create a little atmosphere.

Illustration Friday: "Heavy"

Heavy. This is a doodle on the corner of a page of something else but it was appropriate here.
Believe it or not, elephants really are heavy.

I hope to be updating this post throughout the day with other heavy doodles. Check back if you're into heavy stuff.

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And another!

"Almost there..."

That's what the guy said in Star Wars right before he blew up.

Hopefully I'll not blow up, even though I'm almost there. We're close to being done with the first for real, 2-D hand drawn animation today done at Portland Studios.

Everything is being complied together in AfterEffects and ought to be ready to go soon.

As it becomes available I'll post links to it (assuming it makes it to the internet) it's a TV spot for a hospital. So! Well see. Here's a little sample.

THE HOLOGRAMS

I don't post things that aren't mine too often so hopefully when I do it means something. What, I don't know but hopefully something. And something good.

I like to admit when I'm wrong. I don't think this is typical. I think I like to think it draws a good contrast between me and the people who refuse to admit they're ever wrong. Which is probably just as selfish and just as bad. But, in any case I was wrong, at first, about this video.

I was put off by it's emo-haired hero, the über-indie-punkiness of it all, and its dystopian setting complete with obligatory faceless military (music?) police, but guess what, I was wrong.

And you know what won me over-- ROBOTS.

HUGE FIGHTING ROBOTS.


That and the design, the action, and the animation is so friggin awesome. This really is spectacular. I hope you enjoy it.

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And in the best way possible it reminds me of this other incredible (and unrelated) piece of animation:

evolution of a character:

Did some development work a while back for a supposed kids' show. This character evolved quite a bit-- sort of.

I hit on the design early but he went through several iterations of execution. Enjoy.

The characters are in descending order (the top is the first one I did, the bottom is the final) you can decide for yourself which you like best.

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office/studio/luxury wing: site B

I have a fantastic room at our house for all my work and stuff.

Below, you'll find pictures of it. You'll see some work, some stuff, and pictures of our garage which I've commandeered for oil painting.

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